Dover mortuary let 9/11 remains go to landfill, too

WASHINGTON - Partial remains from some people killed in the Sept. 11 attack ended up in a landfill, according to a Pentagon-commissioned report released yesterday.

WASHINGTON — Partial remains from some people killed in the Sept. 11 attack ended up in a landfill, according to a Pentagon-commissioned report released yesterday.

The report revealed previously undisclosed blunders at the U.S. military’s main mortuary.

The unidentified remains came from two of the three sites of the Sept. 11 attack: the Pentagon and the Shanksville, Pa., crash site of one of the hijacked airliners.

Retired Gen. John Abizaid, briefing Pentagon reporters on the findings of the independent review of practices at the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, said it was unclear how many people’s partial remains were disposed of in this manner.

“I don’t know that there’s a way to find out,” Abizaid said.

The remains were classified in the report as ones that “could not be tested or identified,” leaving open the possibility that they could have come from victims and hijackers.

The incident is certain to further undermine the reputation of the Dover mortuary after last year’s revelations that it mishandled the remains of war dead. This included losing body parts twice and allowing the partial remains of at least 274 troops to be dumped in a Virginia landfill.

That policy was abandoned in 2008, and all partial remains are now buried at sea.

The report suggested that the human remains from the Sept. 11 attack were essentially treated like medical waste. The remains were cremated, placed in sealed containers and then given to a biomedical-waste firm, which incinerated them.

Although the report said the assumption among top brass at the time was that “nothing remained” after the cremation and incineration, officials later learned that some residual material was left behind, the report said. That material was being dumped in a landfill.

The independent report’s claims about the remains of Sept. 11 dead appeared to take Air Force leaders by surprise as well as a group representing victims of the crashed United Airlines flight in Pennsylvania.

“This is impossible to believe,” said Lisa Linden, a spokeswoman for Families of Flight 93, who said the remains from the crash were under the control of the Somerset County coroner.

“Our understanding is that no remains were sent to Dover.”

The report also disclosed other irregularities. One happened in 2006 when the mortuary accidentally treated the victims of a Navy T-39 Sabreliner jet crash as medical waste, as opposed to giving them a group burial.

In January 2008, the Air Force paid a $25,000 settlement to the widow of a Marine whose personal effects were cremated along with his remains.

Abizaid acknowledged that investigations into irregularities at Dover had taken place in the past but had not been acted upon.